365 T-shirts - the reasoning

This blog should be sub-titled: a journal of my life in geek.

I get my geek on with things about which I am geeky: comic books, Baseball, Ultimate, science fiction, my favorite bands, books I have read and loved, and Jungian psychology to name some of the most frequently traversed subjects.

I began this project simply as a way to count my T-shirts. I own a lot of T-shirts. But how many do I have? Do I have 365? We shall find out.

When I started this blog, I thought about how each T-shirt means something to me. I bought it for a reason, after all. I set myself the task to post an entry about a new T-shirt every day as a way to simply write something every day, a warm up for writing fiction, which is my passion. Writing is like exercise. Warm ups are good for exercise. But after completing a month of blogging about T-shirts, I have learned that this blog serves as a journal; it documents my life in geek, sort of a tour of my interests in pop culture. The blog serves as a tool for self-inventory, for assessment and analysis of self and the origins of self, for stepping through the process of individuation in catalogues, lists, and ranks.

The blog also made me aware that I have some serious gaps in my T-shirt ownership, and I am in the process of collecting some new T-shirts for several of the great popular culture icons that I truly love. Stay tuned.

I was also a bit surprised that people checked out my blog and continue to check it, read it, and even comment on it. I am very appreciative of this readership. Please feel free to share your thoughts in my comments section. I will respond.

Also, please note that I have moved the original introductory text to the side bar. And now, I present to you the most recent entry of 365 T-shirts: a journal of my life in geek. Thank you for reading.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

I have been a huge 10,000 Maniacs fan since the mid-1980s. I heard that the band played Club Soda around 1985, before I discovered this great band.

The story of my discovery is brief, but it's one of my favorite stories of discoveries of a band or musical artist.

WIDR, the WMU student radio station, used to host a featured album show and another show in which a DJ would play a collection of music from one band or artist. I threw a cassette in one day for one of these shows as I was called down for dinner because I liked the music. The show had already started, so I had missed the name of the artist. For several months after, I had this cassette of music that was beautiful and mesmerizing. But I did not know the name of the album and the artists. One song in particular became an instant favorite of mine, though I did not know the name of the song and couldn't make out the all the lyrics. The song is featured in a video below. It is still my favorite 10,000 Maniacs song. When I heard them play it in concert, I cried. (And I waited through several concerts before they did play it, so that moved me even more emotionally as between each song I would have my fingers crossed and be sending the band the mental message: "Lily Dale. Lily Dale. Lily Dale.")

Months after recording that cassette and playing it over and over and falling completely in love with the music, the precise, tight guitar, and the rich and hearty vocals, I borrowed an intriguing looking album from a friend of mine, a local musician, Jeff Krebs, called The Wishing Chair by a band named 10,000 Maniacs. It was the music on my cassette! And there was the song: "Lily Dale," named for a cemetery in New York near the band's home town of Jamestown.

I have several 10,000 Maniacs shirts, so I am going to leave off at this content for now and let several videos speak for the band's brilliance. These are not all of my favorite 10,000 Maniacs songs. I feel that I need to share "Eat For Two" because it's on the shirt as a promo for the 10,000 Maniacs album Blind Man's Zoo. I selected six songs just from You Tube searching. Some are favorites, like "Lilly Dale," and another, like "Headstrong," was chosen simply because it's on Blind Man's Zoo.

More 10,000 Maniacs content to come in future blogs so stay tuned.

But first some images of ticket stubs. These are not all my ticket stubs and one is not mine. It was given to me by my friend "Billy" Walt Curley, He who is!

10,000 Maniacs- Eat for Two/Live/HD

10,000 Maniacs - Can't Ignore The Train

Natalie Merchant - Verdi Cries

Lilydale 10,000 Maniacs

I can't embed these some for some reason. But click the links. They work.

Check out Sense of Doubt blog

Hi. Thanks for reading. I closed out daily transmission on March 21st, day 365 of my T-shirt blog-tastic extravaganza spectacular. Currently, I am enjoying a hiatus of total non-transmission or publication for an as yet undetermined period of time. As of the posting of this note (and it's no April Fool's) on 1404.01, I have some unfinished T-shirt blog entries, which will be posted over the next two weeks. After some more blog vacation hiatus, I will resume T-shirt posts on a regular basis, also as yet to be determined (weekly? Twice monthly?) to finish blogging about all the T-shirts that were not featured in the blog year. MEANWHILE, I am posting weekly and somewhat at random over on SENSE OF DOUBT BLOG.

Over there, you will find THE WEEKLY COMIC LIST, the features of occasional T-SHIRTS I AM WEARING THIS WEEK, book

reviews, comic book reviews, and other popular culture nonsense as I have been for a year now but all will go up at SENSE OF DOUBT BLOG and some will direct back here to 365 T-SHIRTS. Ultimately, I will begin Internet publication of my fiction, primarily the comic book satire episodic story called POP! among other projects. So, in summary, 365 T-SHIRTS will continue though intermittently. SENSE OF DOUBT BLOG will host my main blog presence and fiction writing as well as links to any T-shirt posts shared here. I hope you will continue to follow me in my journey as a writer and a content provider. Thank you for your kind attention and time you have spent with me on this and/or any other day this year. I am humbled and blessed by your readership. - chris tower, blogger, originated 1404.01

SiJ - Daguérose

The Catalanian Tapes

ZENИTH

Original Introductory Text

Maybe it's narcissism. I have been wanting to increase my blog presence, and I wanted something that was easy to update, much like my frequent "Facebookery." Hence, 365 T-Shirts. I have a lot of T-Shirts. Some may say that I am somewhat compulsive about buying T-Shirts, owning them, wearing them. Earlier this year (as the blog would have been better started on January 1st), I wondered if I had 365 different T-Shirts. I don't know. Now, obviously, I could count them, but where is the fun in that? Better to post a picture of one per day for an entire year to test whether or not I run out of shirts before 365 days have passed. This hobby means taking and displaying a lot of pictures of me, which is not a prospect that I find thrilling. But the pride of embracing my geeky side and my obvious egotism make for a fine marriage in what I hope will be seen as a whimsical blog for occasional viewing, if not even a regular check in for many of my friends new and old. Thus, I present 365 T-shirts, launched on 1303.22 or as others call it March 22, 2013. Now watch as I fail to keep it going for even a week...